


time will meet us here

by withoutwords



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, physical injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 17:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13792884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: “It’s fine,” Danny told her, still a little numb, still a little grateful he wasn’t going to have to be wheeled any further than the front door. “I just – can I get out of here now? My family’s waiting for me outside.”





	time will meet us here

**Author's Note:**

> this is for earthdragon1 who made a request on tumblr: "mcdanno and kids, where they try to be gentle to danny and he doesn’t know how to take it because he’s so used to being the one that takes care of them."
> 
> thank you for the prompt! this turned out quite a bit angstier than I'd planned, but I hope you enjoy.

Danny knew the moment he fell that it was the last straw for his knee. He felt it pop and grind and burn all at once – like lighting a match in the rain. Out. He’d been pushing it too far for years (they’d warned him about it back in Jersey, but he was young and stupid and ahead of himself, he didn’t want to hear any common sense).

“Look, Doc, save me the medical jargon,” Danny told the woman with the white coat and the clipboard. She was lovely, sure, and gentle, he knew, but he’d been down this road too many times. Words couldn’t help him now. “Will I be back doing field work or not?”

“Well, Detective,” she said with a sigh, adjusting her collar with a frown. “I’m afraid that if you keep going the way you have you could very well lose full mobility of the leg. It could mean using the cane indefinitely.”

“Right.”

“I’m sorry, I know how important - ”

“It’s fine,” Danny told her, still a little numb, still a little grateful he wasn’t going to have to be wheeled any further than the front door. “I just – can I get out of here now? My family’s waiting for me outside.”

“There’s just a few more things to sort out, with the paperwork, and rehab,” she explained with a pitying smile. ( _She doesn’t pity you, Danny_ , he can hear Steve say in his head. _She’s just nice, some people are nice._ ) “And we’ll get you on your way.”

When he finally gets out to the waiting room - where Steve has Charlie cuddled on him and Grace is beside them on her phone – he throws Steve a _please don’t ask questions here_ look that he must read loud and clear. He cheers, flying Charlie over to Danny for a kiss before throwing him onto his shoulders while Grace pushes the wheelchair.

“Thinking about a future in Nursing, huh Monkey?”

“Thinking about pushing you down the stairs actually,” she teases and the cackle from Steve just shows who she’s getting her humour from. 

Danny wails and moans all the way home about the victim being victimised and nobody caring. He manages to keep the façade going all through dinner – Charlie telling them stories about school and Grace trying to act normal when a boy calls her on her cell. Danny feels his fist curl instinctively – but it’s just a general worry, a habit. He knows she can handle herself. He knows she will come to him if she needs to.

“Well?” Steve finally says as the kids are settled in front of the television and he’s clearing the table. “Are we talking about this now or what?”

“Can we wait until they’re in bed?”

“Why? They’re gonna have to know eventually.”

“Yeah. Eventually. Right now I’m still trying to process it myself.”

Steve stops suddenly, taking a breath so deep his whole body seems to seize with it. Danny can feel the emotion of it prickle at his eyes – how can he expect the kids to cope with this when he can’t?

“Process what, Danny?” Steve goes on, turning around and folding his arms. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is that I – I can’t be your partner any more. The doctor wants me off field duty for good.”

Steve all but falls into the chair next to Danny, a hand wrapped around his neck and another at his knee. “You listen to me,” he says, low and rumbling, pressing his nose to Danny’s temple. “You’ll always be my partner, you got that? You _always_ will.”

Danny wipes at his eye, trying to keep it together, trying not to feel every stage of grieving all at once. He’s hurt and angry and still disbelieving – he’s wound up so tight he might never recover. “I’m meant to help you, I’m meant to help the kids – I don’t even know how I’m getting up those stairs tonight. Or how I’m getting down them to make Charlie’s lunch in the morning. Or how - ”

“Hey, hey, it’s new, it’s fresh. You’ll get better, and you’ll do those things again, you will.”

Danny curls into him closer, accepts a kiss to his cheek, to his mouth. Steve’s got him buried in his arms, holding tight, and even though every part of him’s fighting it, he does feel safe. He does want to hold on and he does believe the best is yet to come. 

“Danno?” Charlie calls from the doorway, and they both look up to see him and Grace standing there, watching them. “Danno, I can make my own lunches. Grace can teach me.”

Grace nods, her eyes glistening. “And I can do all the driving, too, school drop offs and, and I can take you to work.”

“Hey, hey,” Danny twists in his chair and throws his arms out for them. “C’mere, come here, it’s okay.”

They rush over, careful of his knee, and he buries his face in Charlie’s hair and clenches at Grace’s shoulder. He’s not going to be with Steve when he’s out there doing something Danny would never approve of. He’s not going to get up every single morning to see the kids to school. He’s not going to do every little thing he’d like to – but he knows now that they don’t need that from him.

They just need him to be there. And he will.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr.](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com)


End file.
